A few days ago, a survey by Opinion Research Corporation and AOL revealed that people – at least in the US – are “addicted to e-mail”. Right. And how does this manifest itself? Apparently people spend an average of one hour a day reading/writing e-mail. They have multiple accounts. And, oh horror, they give out e-mail addresses as often as phone numbers! So now people like Juha-Matti at Tietoviikko are picking up the so-called “news” and acting all weird about it.
Could someone tell me what exactly is the problem here?
Spending an hour a day reading or writing e-mail isn’t that bad. It’s a form of communication. Nobody would’ve questioned you 20 years ago if you spent an average of one hour a day writing letters. Nobody questions you if you speak an hour a day on the phone. Why should e-mail be any different? It’s just another form of communication. And active, creative communication at that; you’re the one writing stuff! At the same time, hours and hours of passive communication (like watching TV) every day is considered perfectly normal.
I bet most people talk every day. Many people can talk for hours every day. Yet, we don’t consider that addiction or something that we should avoid or be worried about. But if spending an hour a day for e-mail is addiction, shouldn’t talking many times as long be an equal cause for concern?
Instead of spending a day every week with no e-mail (as proposed), let’s try to spend a day without talking.
Oh but that would be just silly, wouldn’t it?
Exactly. I rest my case. E-mail is just one form of communication and should be treated as such. One can get addicted in pretty much anything, and addiction should be treated. But as long as we spend four times as much time on passive communication than on e-mail, this hysteria over e-mail is completely out of proportions.
